Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Mosefund Lonzardo

Another lovely cut provided to me by Michael Clampffer at Mosefund farm. This is simply a loin with the fat cap still attached. It is a loin(lonza) + backfat(lardo), hence the "lonzardo" designation. It is the same cut as in my previous Speck dicarre' post. In fact, it's the other half of the same piece. This is the loin end. I was unsure about what to do with this. So, urged by Jason to just let the meat do all the talking, I obliged and took the path of austerity. I cured this only with sea salt, cure#2 and black pepper for 17 days. Rinsed it, and, again, contrary to tradition, cased it, same as the speck dicarre'. One thing I haven't mentioned previously when dealing with cuts such as this. It is about 60/40 fat/meat percentage. Conventionally, you would consider any given whole muscle would be nearing readiness at the 30% weight loss plateau. However, since this cut contains a freakishly disproportionate amount of fat, you can throw convention out the window. Super high quality fat like this contains about ZERO moisture. That being the case, weight loss does not occur as it would normally. I believe this was removed after 9 weeks at only 25% loss. I had to go strictly by feel with these. Not the fat cap either, just the lean. Again, I am happy with the fact that I cased this. I really don't think this could have turned out any tastier.

I'm surprised you got to 25% loss after only 9 weeks. My mangalitsa lonza (also about an inch of fat around it) only got to 25% after 14 weeks. The other lonza is still just 23% and my pancettas are between 11% and 14%. Clearly more fat content means less water and associated weight loss. Hope that means I'll be able to keep it hanging as I'm only able to eat so much salumi each day!